When the immune system in an organism is no working properly, the malfunction can lead to a host of diseases and disorders in the organism. For example, when the immune system is overactive, unable to differentiate between self and foreign, or impaired. A good number of diseases and disorders are associated with a malfunctioning immune system. Some well-known ones include Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes mellitus type 1, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and severe combined immunodeficiency such as HIV/AIDS. While there are numerous strategies, drugs, pharmaceutical compounds, agents and the likes that can be used to correct and/or mitigate the malfunctioning immune system, additions to the current repertoires of intervention would provide physicians with more and/or better options in the treatment and management of immune system related diseases and disorders.
In the treatment of any disease or disorder, specific delivery of therapeutics to the desired target sites in an organism is an important contributing factor to success of the treatment. This is especially true of biologic therapeutics. A biologic is a preparation, such as a drug, a vaccine, or an antitoxin, that is synthesized from living organisms or their products thereof, and is used as a diagnostic, preventive, or therapeutic agent. However, there are limited numbers of ways to delivery biologic therapeutics to target sites. Oral delivery is generally ineffective and difficult to achieve with biologics. Effective delivery systems are required if the therapeutic is to be delivered.